Prediction: A Paradigm Shift in Social Media Sharing

Google + Circles has finally provided sharing in the way that most people want. Even Google may not realize the avalanche of changes it has started, though. Google’s implementation of Circles will usher in a new paradigm for sharing: one where we no longer focus on where we want to share but instead focus on who we want to share with.

The current state

Right now, when you share content you pick the network you want to share to. You click a Tweet or Retweet button to share to Twitter, click a Facebook Like, etc. This is because social sharing began with social networks–locations where people congregate online.

Some of your contacts operate mainly in one location, say Facebook or Twitter but you’re probably connected with other contacts across multiple locations. And still other contacts are mainly accessible via email or text messaging. To reach all of the people you’d like to reach with a piece of content, you have to make the effort to go to each network and share or use a tool such as Hootsuite or ping.fm to share across multiple sites. If you want to share selectively within each site, such as to only certain LinkedIn groups and Facebook friends, it becomes even more time-consuming and difficult. Even in the third-party tools, there is poor support for sharing to select Lists, pages, or groups.

As each social network implements a rich user experience and feature set equivalent to Google + Circles, it will be easier to focus on who you want to share with. While you will still need to go to each social network to share, you will be able to more easily select groups of people within each network that you want to share with.

Instead of having a choice of sharing publically or to friends-only on Facebook, you’ll easily be able to share to selected groups, such as Work Colleagues or Gamer Friends. Similarly, you’ll be able to tweet at your list of Gamers in order to share selected tweets and content just to the people most likely to be interested in that information.

Thus, at first, you will have two-step process of choosing where you want to share and then who you want to share with.

What we need are Enhanced Share buttons

Google Plus will likely lead the way in providing a Share button for websites that lets you select the Circle you want to share with right from the button. (Breaking news–Google Plus just announced on 8/24 that they are enabling sharing via the +1 button–and the ability to select the Circles you want to share with.)

Shortly after that, I predict Facebook, Twitter, and others will add the ability, so that you can target your sharing to specific groups of people in their network, as well.

Evolution – Third party tools consolidate circles across platforms

Before long, though, third party tools will enable you to consolidate your Circles/Lists across platforms. (And if you’re a VC, contact me and we can talk about being the first of these tools!) You’ll be able to create meta-circles that let you define your different social groups, ala Google + Circles. However, you won’t have to worry about whether your contacts are on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.

Using these third-party tools (unless Google, itself, decides to build it), you’ll be able to authenticate with Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc., and then assign your contacts from across these networks into Circles or groups. You can build your Professional contacts, your Best Friends and Family group, your Gamers group, etc. People may reside in more than one circle, of course, so that Joe is in both your Best Friends and your Gamers group.

Similarly, you’ll be able to use Circles to segment your audience. If you have followers on Twitter or fan of your Facebook page, you’ll be able to group them into segments, such as Product Managers or Marketers, Small Business CEOs, Bloggers or Consultants, and so on. Again, people may reside in more than one Circle and you may have contact with them via more than one social network.

Retweet, Like, and other buttons are replaced

At first, people will use these third-party tools to share to their meta-Circles. Instead of going to each social network and sharing a piece of content within it, you will be able to simply use the third-party application. For example, Feedly might build in this ability and you can share content to your meta-Circles from it. You’ll select the Gamers or Bloggers circle to share your content to. The application will then use the Facebook, Google +, Twitter and other APIs to find the appropriate Lists or Circle in each social network and share your content just to those audiences within each network.

You won’t have to think about where your audience and contacts are. You will only have to think about who you want to share with.

Then, one or the other of these third-party tools will create a single Share button that publishers can put on their website. With this button, you can share to your contacts just by clicking the button and selecting the circle of people you want to share with.

Your content will then be shared with the correct groups of people on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and whatever other networks you’re active in. You won’t ever have to think about where your audience lives. All you’ll have to think about is who you are targeting with this content or status update.

And that’s the paradigm shift we can expect in the next one to two years!

Oh the places we will go… to borrow from Suess. And or “the circles” we will share to. Really liking where Social Media is going these days.

A good way to keep your personal stuff personal and away from the business side!

Thanks for great article. Would love to be in the beta for one of these third party platforms!

Cheers,
Rajka

Annette

This is a paradigm shift I certainly look forward to Neicole!

http://digitalb2b.wordpress.com/ Eric Wittlake

Neicole, this is a very cool idea. It blows up the current social network battle in favor of a centralized platfom.
In addition to Circles, I think we need content categories. For instance, I don’t know which of my professional connections are interested in gardening, so if I put something out about gardening, they won’t see it. This isn’t information I am trying to restrict because of its more personal nature, I am just trying to respect their time and attention. In doing so, they don’t ever learn that I’m interested in gardening and we don’t find those additional common ground connection points.

Would love to see your model implemented and in action, and hopefully with it a breaking of the current dual-purpose listening and sharing circles into multiple components, allowing us to share to people that are listening for what we are sharing.

– @wittlake

http://twitter.com/TaraGeissinger TARAinFL

As the owner of a website that focuses on ‘shareable’ content, I definitely need to stay on top of these changes. Thanks for the comprehensive re-cap (and the updates!) I had to laugh a little while reading — it is obviously a quickly changing environment right now! LOL

http://soulati.com/blog Soulati

I now regard you as my pathway to the new and trendy. Your insight into digital and now with your creation of CurateXpress is marvelous to watch. You’ve grown in your business in the last several years; I’ve watched. Very cool.

http://DempseyMarketing.com/journal/ Robert Dempsey

I saw the update to Circles today and think it’s good, but it is still far from how I personally would like to see sharing. What would be even more awesome is this:

1. Allow me to input topics I’m interested in
2. Allow me to follow as many people as I want
3. Show me only the things they share that I’m interested in; and also
4. Allow me to see a full stream of everything they are sharing

With 3 + 4 I could focus in on the topics of interest to me but also have access to the other cool thing they’re talking about that I’m interested in but not as much as my primary topics.

Regardless, it’s great to see more networks now challenging Facebook and Twitter to start upping their game.

http://twitter.com/neicolec Neicole Crepeau

I’m betting you’ll see those kind of features added to Google+, and eventually others. Hopefully a better implementation, with more control, than Facebook’s algorithm for filtering.

That’s a good point, Eric. I was thinking after writing this that topics will somehow come into play. Robert touched on this, too. Not sure exactly how it will look, but I think there will be ways to restrict within circles and/or filter within them on topics. I think there will be a way to do public versus private sharing within circles, too. I.e., I want to share this with these people, but privately. So, use Facebook email or DM.

This is, in my opinion, a spot-on analysis of where things are going. The original Google Circles project that eventually led to Google+ recognized the very important idea that we like to share, but we would like to have more control over who we share with.

Facebook took a step in this direction several years ago when they implemented the ability to segment your newsfeed into filtered lists. Then, after another redesign, they buried the feature and made it difficult to access and use.

Twitter’s list function is one of my favorite things about Twitter although it is flawed in that it only allows me to read from a list and not also segment my tweets to the list.

The ability to fine tune what I share is one of the things that has me excited about Google+ and its long-term potential.

For twitter your model is flawed. It supposes that i know for whom my tweet is interesting. What is great about twitter is that with search and hashtags i can find interesting material without already following the author. What is great about twitter is that a tweet is basically always public, always for the citizens of the world.

F Geraedts

For twitter your model is flawed. It supposes that i know for whom my tweet is interesting. What is great about twitter is that with search and hashtags i can find interesting material without already following the author. What is great about twitter is that a tweet is basically always public, always for the citizens of the world.

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